Welcome to the Streets of Avalon. This massive fantasy city holds adventure, intrigue, and a darkness that comes from its denizens, both above and below. Our Kickstarter is to fund the sourcebook for the city of Avalon along with additional material through stretch goals to add more darkness to the city and provide supplemental material for the world’s most popular role playing game.
The Streets of Avalon has a gazetteer of the city covering the people who...

The fourth mini-mission of Defiance in Phlan is the most controversial, the hardest to run for many DMs, and the one that can be the most satisfying to players if everything goes well. As I attempted to highlight each pillars of play within the various mini-missions, this is the one where I decided to let roleplaying interaction have its time in the spotlight.
Roleplaying, as a skill, can come naturally to some and harder to others....

In this series of blog articles, I have so far looked at the design of the Adventurers League Season 1 introductory adventure Defiance in Phlan, including the first two mini-adventures: “The Meeting at Deepnight” and “The Screams at Dawn.” Today I want to take a closer look at the third mini-adventure, “The Dead at Highsun.”
In the overall structure of the adventure, I wish I had placed this one second instead of third. In hindsight, this...

The previous two blog articles in this series at the overall structure, and then the first mini-adventure, in the Adventurers League introductory adventure Defiance in Phlan for the Tyranny of Dragons storyline season. This week I am looking at the second mini-adventure entitled "The Screams at Dawn." For those of you who do not want to witness self-flagellation, turn away now. This is my least favorite of all the missions in this adventure, and I...

When the Adventurers League launched at Gen Con 2014, in conjunction with the release of the 5th edition of D&D, there were a great many question marks. How would the new edition be received? How strong would sales be? Would the new Living campaign, referred to as the D&D Adventurers League, be a comparable replacement to the Living campaigns of the past? Overall, what did the future hold for D&D in particular and roleplaying games...

Buffalo, NY – August 15, 2017 – Encoded Designs, a tabletop game publishing company, announced today that it has signed a licensing agreement with Brett Bloczynski of Gaming & BS to publish The Streets of Avalon, a low fantasy city adventure setting.
“I’ve always loved the stories of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, city based adventures where the magic was more mystical than magical, and the horrors of Howard’s Conan stories,” said Encoded Designs Lead Developer...

August 4, 2017— BUFFALO, NY: Encoded Designs announced today that it has signed a licensing agreement with Tracy Barnett to publish a revised and expanded edition of his Fate-based tabletop RPG, Iron Edda.
“This is a great opportunity for both Tracy and Encoded Designs,” said Encoded Designs President Phil Veccione. “Iron Edda is a unique campaign setting that combines Norse myth with epic action through the Fate system. It's Pacific Rim meets Vikings with a dash...

I don’t normally put the full court press on people when the ENnies voting comes around. Normally, my annual advice is “Please go vote, and if you vote for something I worked on, great.” This year I am going to be more direct.
Please vote for Focal Point in the Best RPG Related Product Category.
Here’s why…
Focal Point is the final book in an accidental trilogy of books that became the Complete Game Master’s Series. It started...

Hello and happy Spring to you all, or for those on the East Coast, second winter. Despite the cold, snow, and overcast skies, there is much to be happy about here at the Encoded offices. We had our second anniversary in February. This quarter was a busy one for us, with some unplanned work coming up that we will talk about below. That unplanned work knocked some of our Q1 and Q2 plans aside, and...

Encoded Designs (designers of Part-Time Gods of Fate, Life and Moon, and Dangerous Space Jail) have teamed up with artist Matt Morrow to create the Character Cache, a collection of characters designed to be used in tabletop RPG gaming. This effort is being supported via a Patreon community. We have recently updated the campaign and are once again looking for supporters.
In the new version of the Character Cache, we have expanded the community input, allowing...

Another three months have passed, and 2015 has drawn to a close. We are getting close to our 2nd anniversary, next month. This quarter has been a busy one for the Encoded team, as the past several have been. With the transformation from writers and designers to publishers, our planning for 2016 looks to make it a big year for us.
Before we look forward, let’s look back at Q4.
Publications
Character Cache
The Character Cache is going well. We have cleared...

Wow…three months goes by quickly. It’s time again to look at how Encoded is doing, what we are up to, and things that are coming in the near future.
In terms of the team we have not grown, nor are we planning any future growth at this time. With the current team, we have all the skills we need to design, write, and create books and other publications. When I started Encoded, I never thought that...

Welcome, students. Up to today, we have covered three major periods of the history of Elhal. They are not equal in number of years, but rather are grouped out of significance. The first time period was Before the Empire, when Elhal went from an unorganized group of humans into Kingdoms, and ending with the formation of the Empire. The second period was the Imperial Age, where the Empire ruled over Elhal. It was in retrospect a...

September 15, 2015 - Encoded Designs is teaming up with artist Matt Morrow to create the Character Cache, the blending of character art and game material for GMs and players.
As a GM you will be able to use the Character Cache as a collection of NPCs. The content includes different ways the character can be used in your campaign. If you are a player, the content supplies an illustration of the character, and provides questions to...

Before we conclude our discussions on the Reign of the Demon King, having already covered it's effects on the kingdoms and organizations, I thought I would take a lecture to discuss with you my own personal experiences during this period of time. So as we conclude this section of lecture, if you do not mind a more personal and less objective historical recount, I will tell you about some of my experiences during this period in recent history.
My...

For an imaginative young DM growing up in the heyday of AD&D in the 1980s, the hours and days and weeks spent creating fantasy worlds was anything but wasted time. Starting with the expansive creation stories for your home-brewed gaming world (a staple for excited young—and old—DMs), you inevitably had to focus on the adventures—the places where your players would actually interact with your world. And for me, at least, one piece of adventure design...

We continue our discussion about the Reign of the Demon King. In our last lecture, we talked about the fate of the Kingdoms, during this thirty year period. This week, we look at some of the major organizations in Elhal, and how they fared under the rule of the Demon King.
The Organizations
In all the Demon King, and by extension, the Demons were mostly hostile to any organized group of humans. As a student of humanity,...

Greetings once again, students. Today’s lecture covers the thirty-year span in Elhal’s history where the Demon King ruled over Elhal. There is no darker time for humans than this period of time. All that was built in the thousand years of the Empire would erode under the dark presence of the Demon King. Left unchecked, it is possible that humanity and all of Elhal would have perished. Today, we will cover what happened to each...

Welcome back, students. I hope you enjoyed your time off as much as I did mine. In our last lecture we discussed the state of Elhal in 1024, after the Demons solidified their hold on Arelean. In that lecture we talked about King Therion's plan to rebel against the Demons. Today, we will look more into Therion's plan, and his foresight.
The Quiet Before the Storm
For six years, from 1024 to 1030, Kotkala prepared for a war...